As part of the discretionary equipment installed within a motor vehicle, it has become common to include a beverage vessel holder. This holder provides a convenient means to intermittently drink from a beverage vessel during a motor vehicle journey whilst remaining fully in control of that vehicle. Originally, such holders simply retained the vessel, whether it be a cup or a can or bottle, to ensure judder movement in the motor vehicle doesnot disturb and so spill the beverage contained within such a vessel. More recently, it has become desirable to chill or heat beverages or simply maintain such beverages within their beverage vessel at a desired temperature. However, within a motor vehicle there is limited electrical power capacity so thermo-electric devices based upon the Peltier effect or Seebeck effect have been used to achieve necessary chilling/heating effect. Examples of such thermo-electric device arrangements are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,258 and International Patent Publication No. WO 90/00708. Typically, switching between heating and chilling involves simple reversal of electrical current flow between respective sides of the semi-conductor wafers which define the thermo-electric device.
An unfortunate consequence of heating or chilling a beverage vessel is either the precipitation or evaporation of, generally, water condensate. Such water condensate can reduce thermal insulation and add to the size of thermal load i.e. the heat capacity of the whole for unit temperature, necessary to achieve the desired temperature variation. The water condensate generally congregates upon the beverage vessel surface and may cool and wet the beverage vessel such that, in addition to the low thermal efficiency, an unsightly appearance and slippy surface upon the vessel is created.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a beverage vessel holder which allows temperature control but substantially avoids the above-mentioned problems.